Life and Death
by theurbanmormont
Summary: A collection of mini fics chronicling the year that passes between the events of CATWS and AOU told through the eyes of different people. Continuation of The Soldier and the Doctor.
1. Nightmare

It was three in the morning and Mallory Smith sat on a toilet seat.

The coldness of the ceramic had long since been replaced by the warmth of her bare thighs, no longer bare as she had pulled her pretty pink underwear back on without removing herself entirely from the seat. The pyjama bottoms however lay pooled around her feet; the night was too warm, too stuffy to be wearing thick pants. She had long since finished peeing but she sat still as stone on the toilet seat, waiting, contemplating, _counting _as the seconds faded into minutes.

Unlike her bathroom at her apartment, her childhood home had a decent shower under a reasonably large bathtub. She'd missed having baths. In fact it had been the third thing she'd done after moving back temporarily to her childhood home – the first being crying a lot over the state of her life and the second being sleeping. The toilet was huge and weirdly, comfortable enough for Mallory to sit on and the sink was in the current ruin of a gender-based civil war, the right side a cluster of feminine products in various shades of pink and green, the left a smaller neater row of blue and black masculine ones. A lump in her throat suddenly formed as a grief induced thought invaded her senses. _He'll never get to wear that cologne ever again_. The smell of it would never mix with the scent of her father's skin and envelope her in a hug. She shuddered, suddenly freezing but unable to draw the strength to pull the pants up her legs.

_Stop it _she scolded herself, her eyes finding their way to the drugstore bag and it's contents that lay inside the sink. The patronizingly happy face of the drugstores mascot smiled at her, as she shook the drying pee on the stick and counted down the minutes till she reached three. The instructions insisted on waiting two to three minutes but to be _absolutely sure _she was going to wait three. The stick was face down, the results impossible to see until she turned it over.

This was the only way to do it. She had to keep it secret. Her mother would freak out completely if she had noticed what else inside the drugstore bag when she came back. Her mother had been suspicious in the first place when after almost three days of lying in a fetal position talking only to her and the other practically silent resident of the Smith household she had suddenly announced her intention to go the drugstore and buy some natural herbal remedies to 'help James sleep'. It wasn't entirely a lie; James's new remedy had been taken before he'd went to bed and so far, none of his usual nightmarish screams echoed the halls of the Smith household. She was glad she had gone, both for herself but especially for James. His sickening nightmares gave him headaches the next day and nights filled with pointless sleep. He told her quietly when they'd come back from his big outing to the Smithsonian three days ago that the nightmares made him exhausted. Her true intentions of the drugstore trip had to be hidden and James did need something to help him sleep and this was a compromise. Her mother couldn't know about the test.

There was really no need in telling her mother she reasoned. It wasn't certain anyway that she was actually pregnant. She had just been a couple of days late; well in fact a week late. After the downing of the Triskelion two weeks ago, she had expected her period to show up on the Monday, exactly a weeks anniversary to the Triskelion tragedy. But it had never showed. She'd put it down to stress; stress of planning a funeral, caring for a mother who so obviously was pretending everything was okay, keeping James away from Steve as per James's request, waiting anxiously for Natasha to announce any legal troubles Mallory might have, listening to Steve lament about how he desperately wanted to have even a second look at James to make sure he was okay.

But at the end of the second week when it still hadn't came and Mallory suggested the trip to the Smithsonian, inside in the museum she had saw a woman cradling her huge bump and it had clicked. With worry she had clamped up and thought about it for three days; should she? Shouldn't she? In the end she had made her excuses and gone for it, coming out of the drugstore with a guilty face as if she had just committed a crime in buying natural remedies for a good nights sleep and a pregnancy test.

Swallowing, Mallory reached the final thirty seconds in her countdown and finally it sunk in. How stupidly huge and important the next few moments were for her. In thirty seconds, her life could change forever. One outcome would have her a mother in nine months to a slightly unwanted baby who's only shot at a father was a dead and dangerous lying neo-Nazi. That's if of course she didn't go down the abortion route. Would she do it alone? Could she pluck up the courage to ask her mother to come with her? Could she even do that to her? Mallory didn't think she could ask her family to watch her be responsible for another death when they'd just attended the funeral of a death she was partly responsible for. Another would be better; another would have her destroy the stick, box and bag entirely, wash her hands both metaphorically of the business and literally of the remnants of pee and go back to bed and pretend it had never happened.

And all could be changed by a few chemicals released in her pee made obvious by a few lines. One line meant she was in the clear; two lines meant game over.

Of course she wanted children. Just not right now. Not with this father. Not with this current situation. She couldn't bring a baby in the world when she could barely remember to eat every day. It was unthinkable. And the time was up; she reached thirty. She took a deep breath, stood from the toilet and walked to the sink where she was reflected in the mirror – the t-shirt that belonged to her dead and ex-boyfriend in a dire need of a wash – and turned it over in her hands.

She was silent for a beat, registering the results. One line. She wasn't pregnant, just very late. Relief coursed through her, alongside with the strange bitter tang of disappointment. She put the used stick back in the bag and bundled it all up, opening the cupboard under the sink and stuffing it at the bottom of the bin. The dark wood of the cupboard door blurred as she searched for a nighttime sanitary napkin, anticipating the irony of her uterus to kick in. As she put it in place, binned the remains and rewashed her hands, a choking sob escaped her throat and hot tears fell down her cheeks.

It took ten minutes to calm herself down. The image of the one line on the test was burnt into every corner of her brain, the only thing she could see. Her frame rattled with each howling sound, echoed around the small confines of the bathroom, the sound horrible to her own ears. She tried to be quiet but it was impossible; no matter how much she covered her mouth the sound of something dying would escape and echo around her. She wasn't even sure why she was crying; she didn't want the baby and she was wasting time that she could've spent sleeping or staring into space. But even as she attempted to coax and bully herself out of crying, she couldn't stop.

_Get a grip, Mal_, she hissed at herself as she ran the tap and splashed her face with cold water to reduce the redness. _It's over, you're not pregnant its fine. _

She switched the light off and went back to bed, creeping past James's residence in the guest bedroom and her mother asleep in the big room. She crawled under the covers, shivering and fell into a cold sleep filled with dreams of sharks with cool blue eyes swimming in waters filled with lillies.

In the same house, James Buchanan Barnes lay awake as the floorboards creaked outside his door as someone sneaked past to go to bed.

His eyes burned with half-forgotten memories, as he stared at the cream ceiling and wondered how much could change in such a short space of time. A week ago he'd been the Winter Soldier, wandering from place to place with zero memories and an attachment to a lively doctor who seemed to be the only colour in his monochrome existence. Then his life had exploded into memories that were physically painful to remember and sometimes he forgot where he was. He squeezed his eyes shut and recalled the facts as he always did before he tried to sleep; his name then and now, his titles, where he was.

_James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Sergeant in the army, member of the Howling Commandos. Assassin. Mallory's house._

He opened his eyes to the cream ceiling again and sighed, breathing deeply, in and out. A loud gust of wind blew the drapes of the window swirling, and a rash of goosebumps covered his arms and naked chest. His shirt lay abandoned on the floor, his pants loose on his form as they belonged to Mallory's dad. Her dead dad.

He'd had mixed feelings about attending the funeral. Mallory's hadn't forced him to attend but there had been something pleading in her face that had stayed with him and made him insist on attending. Part of him didn't really want to pay his respects to a man who had direct responsibility over keeping him in captivity but another part wanted to be with Mallory. He had noticed, even when he had been the Soldier, she had strangely seemed to draw some strength from his being near her; on the wasp as they had been airlifted to that Russian prison so long again she had sat a little straighter and looked a little less homesick by just looking at him.  
>His suit had been borrowed, another Sampson Smith number which drooped horribly over his frame and the day had been refreshingly cold. Mallory's lovely mother Julia had smiled so kindly when he'd automatically helped her out of the car following the hearse that he knew he'd made the right choice. He closed his eyes and remembered the painful scene for the Smith family; Julia being comforted by her sister as she sobbed noisily through the sermon, Mallory staring forward with her lower lip wobbling attempting not to cry. It was then he had remembered Steve's mother's funeral, <em>so<em> long ago, and his hand had reached out and loosely held hers. Sampson had been cremated, and the wake was at the Smith household where he'd gone to bed early listening to the muffled cries of Mallory in the room near him, his accentuated hearing amplifying the noise painfully.

He wasn't even sure if the Steve memory was real or not, but he did remember it somehow. Steve had that same empty look in his eyes, that determination not to cry in public as they had carried their ceremony forward. It was the same look Mallory had shared. It had triggered the memory. Could looks trigger a memory? It seemed only Mallory could trigger things within him, words or sights or sounds. Was it because he trusted her? Even smells she could bring back. She mentioned vanilla once when she was talking to her mother about a cake and for a moment James swore he was back in his childhood home watching his mother pull something out of the oven with the scent of vanilla in the air.

He returned to the present, to the cream ceiling and the borrowed bed when an aching feeling in his bowels returned. He got off the bed and headed in stealth mode to the toilet, careful not to wake the now sleeping Mallory and Julia whose combined breathing floated through the walls. He did his business and washed his hands, and it occurred to him he had forgotten to brush his teeth and take the herbal remedy Mallory had bought for him before going to bed. He opened the cupboard and searched for the small glass bottle filled with vile smelling and tasting liquid that seemed to have little to no effect on his nightmares. He was about to pull it from behind a bottle of bleach when his eyes fell across the bin.

A happy face logo was printed across a small pink plastic bag. He would've ignored it if not for the way the bag had been carefully folded at the top to prevent whatever was inside to come out. He examined it closer; through the pink plastic the name _Happy Family Pregnancy Test _was almost visible_. _His mind went blank like a memory wipe, as he pulled the box from the bag. A small plastic stick clattered to the bathroom floor. He bent to pick it up, the faint smell of urine assaulting his senses.

As he turned it over with a thick sense of dread, he saw one line across the small plastic screen. He searched almost frantically for the instructions, his heart thudding in his chest, but could not find them anywhere. It didn't say on the stick whether one line meant pregnant or not.

_Was Mallory pregnant? And why did she hide it? _

He felt like was invading her privacy, so he replaced the bag in and hid it even better than she had. He went back to bed without brushing his teeth, feeling a swish of mouthwash was enough. He stopped outside Mallory's door, hand poised to knock. He didn't want to disturb her sleep but he was... concerned about her. Was she okay? Did she need anything? His hand fell and he went back to bed, attempting to focus on his memory recalling tasks but failing, drifting to a needed sleep filled with nightmares of babies with blue eyes and metal arms.

A/N: As said in the summary, this will be a collection of mini fics documenting the time between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and my planned AOU fic. Enjoy!


	2. Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy

It had happened four nights ago. Mallory, wrapped up in her own tale of no pregnancy and period cramps with little time to pay attention to others, was downstairs channel surfing when from upstairs she heard a large thump, as if somebody had fallen over or dropped something. Upon racing upstairs, Mallory found James calling for an ambulance and her mother wheezing, her mother's large wedding photo album on the floor being the source of the noise. Instinctively Mallory slipped into medical mode and began asking rapid fire questions to her mother, who answered between wheezes. Could she breathe? Was anything in pain? When her mother answered that she had chest pain and Mallory deduced she couldn't breathe, she diagnosed a heart attack and went into the ambulance with her, leaving James to hold down the fort.

Not quite. At the hospital when her mother had recovered, the doctor had explained her mother had not a heart attack and that they weren't sure what had happened but they were going to take some tests. Mallory had mused on it as the doctor went to sort some paperwork out for them, and when he'd came she'd interrogated him on the symptoms and what he was doing to sort it out. Mallory had been so wrapped up in her tale that it wasn't until she'd hurried to her mother's room that she realized it was the hospital she used to work at before she was made redundant.

"Have you ordered an electrocardiogram? You haven't even checked her blood pressure. An ARB might lower her blood pressure to an acceptable rate but there's no guarantee-"

"Miss Smith we are doing all we can-"

"Well you're not doing enough! Clearly Chief Williams isn't doing her job. Why else would she hire incompetent doctors-"

"Mallory!" Her mother had remarked sharply, as the doctor narrowed his eyes at her and exchanged glances with the nurse who had just entered the room. "Don't be rude."

Feeling sore at this sudden chastisement, Mallory made a face of disgust at the doctor and sat down in the chair beside the bed. As she did, the nurse and doctor entered a conversation.

She mulled on the symptoms and found herself remembering a day at med school that she had seemingly repressed; her instructor had once came into the lessons with a hangover and as such she had dismissed the class on a "research" topic so she could recuperate. They had all been given a part of the body and tasked to find the strangest condition that could affect it. Mallory's topic was eyes, so she had written an essay detailing the symptoms, characteristics, case studies and treatments of cat eye syndrome, which was an indicator of people who had extra chromosome. She barely remembered the details of her own essay but she remembered her boyfriend's, Liam because of it's sadness. He had been given the heart, and he had written his touching essay on _takotsubo cardiomyopathy_.

"What?" The doctor turned to her almost accusingly. Mallory hadn't realized she'd said her realization aloud.

"It could be _takotsubo cardiomyopathy_." The nurse had frowned with confusion so Mallory continued. "Broken heart syndrome."

"Broken heart- Miss Smith that condition is very rare-"

She remembered proof reading Liam's work and the longer she thought about it the more of the essay she could recall. In fact she could remember a few sentences. _Although commonly perceived as rare, the condition is actually more common than mainstream doctors believe. _

"It's not that rare. Uncommon but not impractical to check for. Call for the cardiologist, she should be able to diagnose it properly."

"She?" Her mother wheezed. Mallory turned and smiled gently at her mother.

"It was Dr. Grant when I was here. Is she still here?"

The doctor exchanged a glance of confusion with the nurse and shook his head. "No, she's taking a maternity leave. We have Dr. Evans though, on loan from a hospital up north. He's every bit as good as Dr. Grant."

Mallory wasn't listening, as her own heart had stopped. She hadn't heard him be referred like that in _years_. Liam loved his title. Her mother met her worried glance and her eyes filled with tears.

"Is that-"

"I think so." Mallory replied. She turned back to the doctor. "Is he... um... quite tall, curly hair, blue eyes?"

_Please don't say yes, please don't say yes-_

"Yeah that's him. You know him?" Mallory nodded, unable to speak. The doctor seemed pleased with this information. "I'll go get him then."

The room was left in silence as the doctor and nurse left to find Liam. Mallory dumped herself into the chair and reached out for her mother's hand. The mutual comfort lead to a hard squeeze and Mallory's mother placed her other hand on top of their grasped hands.

"Honey why don't you go get yourself some coffee, hm?" She sniffed and attempted a smile, achieving the effect of looking heartbroken. "And check on James when your outside, make sure he's still alive and stuff."

"Mom, I can stay. I'm not that weak."

Her mother tilted her head to the side. "No honey. It's not a criticism. With everything-" She stopped and swallowed, as if the words had manifested into something that made them stick in her throat. "-that's happened over the past few weeks... I just can't make you do this. I can do it alone."

"Mom-"

"Go. Bring me some coffee while you're at it."

Mallory laughed through her tears. "No. You've just had a heart scare you silly woman; no way are you getting caffeine."

"Please?"

"No! It's a stimulant."

"God you're so bossy. Wonder where you get that from. And here I was thinking there'd be benefits to having a doctor in the family." The pair laughed and Mallory stood to go, with her mother wiping her eyes on the back of her hands.

"Go. Check on James."

Mallory paced outside at the sound of the ringing tone amongst the living embodiment's of irony; the cancer patients who puffed a pack of cigarettes a day and wondered why their lungs weren't healing and the doctors, who chastised patients on smoking yet did it themselves shamelessly in the parking lot. It had always tickled her, watching them smoke with one hand and jab a finger of blame with the other at some parent who came to the hospital with a smoking related disease.

It was the end of summer and the beginnings of autumn could be felt around her; the air turned crisper with the cold and the hazy heat seemed to replace itself with cold blasts of wind that penetrated the thin jackets everybody had worn throughout the summer. The bottom leaves on the trees began to curl brilliant shades of gold and amber, and the sight of people in thick coats and maybe even scarves if it was a particularly cold day began to be commonplace. It wasn't her favourite time of year; nothing could beat that magical feeling of December, with the constant blaring of the same Christmas songs in the stores as she merrily hunted for gifts for her loved ones, that justification of having a glass of wine at eleven in the morning with the phrase "go on, it's Christmas!", the crap decorations storefronts put out with the limp tinsel and failing lights. Even simple things, like sitting inside with hot chocolate and some crappy film she'd seen about twelve times but still loved, watching the snow fall gently in the street. But there was still something special about it, the transition between the lazy and loose feeling of summer to the tightening of autumn.

As she mulled this over, the ringing tone stopped and the answering machine kicked in, her mother's bright voice announcing the Smith family weren't home. _Where the hell was he? _He couldn't of left the house.

She had to go back inside. It was too cold even with the warmth of the coffee in her other hand and it was fruitless to try ringing the phone again. She'd be home soon.

Her stomach was fraught with tension as she navigated the familiar hallways. Maybe he wouldn't recognize her? Also a fruitless suggestion, as she was pretty much the same on the outside as she had been back when they were together. Maybe a little skinnier though; the stress she had been plagued with recently had her forgetting to eat a few times and a side effect with the loss of the snugness on her now size 10 jeans and sharper cheekbones. On the inside she was different. The Mallory Liam could remember had a sense of direction; the Mallory he'd meet had no clue what the hell she was doing with her life. She came to the door and stepped through, sucking in a deep breath as the air shifted to a tense atmosphere. She had a side view of him, a perfect angle to view him in excruciating detail before he could do the same to her.

His hair was still that shade of ambiguity between brown and ginger but close cropped to his skull like a man of the military. His skin had a vague milky tinge, almost sickly and the bones of his cheekbones and jaw seemed to protrude quite painfully through his paper thin skin. He still had his height but there was none of the stacked muscle he usually had; he was skinny, frail. He looked... ill. But he met her eyes and they were still bright blue and a stoke of fear pierced her heart. _Men with bright eyes and dark hair._ His white cheeks turned red with shame as they seemed to have a shared experience of a flashback of the moment she'd walked in on him putting his dick in her best friend, but his eyes became X-rays too and she began sweating heavily under the glare.

Then the door shut and Mallory looked away, the spell broken. He continued stuttering his words nervously and a quick glance to her mother saw she clearly wasn't listening, her gaze harder than steel.

Mallory's phone buzzed in her pocket. She searched for it conspicuously in her pockets, aware that everyone in the room was looking at her but they all melted away when her phone displayed a text from James from the spare crappy Samsung that she'd found in the back drawer one night.

_Couldn't hear the phone. Was working out. How's Julie?_

It was so stereotypical James, short and curt, to the point, the attitude she'd come to expect from him and despite her situation she smiled at his words. The curtness of his text did not lessen the concern he had for her mother. He loved Julie. It was clear each time he looked at her; a love that had been born out of mutual understanding of heartbreak and on his part a feeling of gratitude he felt he could never repay.

Mallory's mother spoke as if Liam wasn't. "Who is it?"

"James." Mallory replied absently. "Want me to pass on a message?"

"Tell him not to drink all the coffee."

Mallory shot her a glare. "Mom."

"I'm kidding. Tell him I miss him."

Liam continued after a moments silence as if they hadn't spoken.

_She's okay. She said she misses you. How are you?_

His reply was quick and short, sweet to the point of diabetic:

_I'm fine. How are you?_

Mallory put the phone back in her pocket, unable to answer without telling him everything. James exchanged a glance between the two, all the while talking about beta-blockers and rest for Julie when they got home. He seemed unwilling to look Mallory directly in the eye. Mallory felt self-conscious in her jeans and t-shirt, her face reddening as she imagined him being able to hear her heart thudding at a thousand miles an hour. Despite _everything _that had happened, she still felt those invisible strings of attachment pulling her towards him like a moth to a flame. There was something in Mallory's genetic makeup, something hardwired into her DNA which made her unable to let anyone she had loved go. She had exactly three serious lovers in her life and all she could with great honesty claim she still loved. All three she still held candles for; a vigil to be honest for the last two.

"-to worry about but I'm sure Mal – I mean your daughter – can look after you just as well as we could. Does that sound right? To you I mean?"

He looked at her in the eyes. She swallowed nervously, mouth suddenly dry and nodded. He went back to his mother's chart, all Dr. Evans with all seriousness and gravelly voice.

"Miss Smith may I talk to you outside just for a moment?" He said it carelessly, and Mallory became convinced that it had something to do with her mother's health and nothing that had happened between them. Her mother shook her head but Mallory shrugged and followed him outside.

The moment they stepped into the hallway however, Liam's gaze softened and he looked at Mallory with such pity she wanted to vomit. As she wrestled with the bile induced thoughts, they stayed silent for a moment.

"Hey." His voice was annoyingly soft. "It's been a while."

She wanted to slap his sudden sharp cheekbones. "Whatever. What did you want?"

Mallory tried to sound cold and uninterested but her voice was too high pitched and off to get the tone right. She winced inwardly, but Liam seemed to understand.

"I just wanted to talk if I'm honest. I haven't seen you since..."

The sentence just hung in the air, unfinished and he wasn't willing to complete. However the end part also hung silently in the air. _Since I slept with your best friend on your birthday. _

"August 2nd if I remember correctly. You know. _My birthday_." She had refused to give him his things face to face or give him a chance to explain. Her father had sorted that all out. She felt an unwanted pang of grief.

It was his turn to wince. "Yeah. Look Mal, I-"

"Save it. Please. I have so much more on my mind right now than to listen to this bullshit."

He tilted his head and with the soft gaze, it would've looked sincere. But Liam's face was perpetually set to smug so it came off as patronizing.

"I was just gonna say I'm glad you've moved on." He was prompted by her look of confusion. "With this James character. I'm assuming anyway-"

A burst of laughter cut him off.

"You think he's my boyfriend?" _HA! I hope you're jealous as fuck, he's way more attractive than you. _She shook her head of the sudden, ridiculous thoughts. "Why?"

"You mentioned him-"

"Just because I mention some guy it means I'm dating him? And anyway why the fuck does it matter to you?"

"Mal-"

"Because last time I heard, you had shit all to do with my life since you decided to sleep with Danni. In my bed. On my birthday. You remember Danni? Your wife?"

He was silent. "We're getting divorced."

She hated that fact that a small part of her was pleased, and another small part felt sympathetic.

"And I should care why? You're nothing to me. You are just my mom's doctor, nothing more, nothing less. And speaking of-" She turned to go.

His hand snatched out and grabbed her elbow, hauling her back gently. She whipped her head around, her glare hot enough to melt steel, expecting some self pitying statement that she would hate him and herself for pitying.

"I heard about your dad." Was his surprising words. "I'm so... so sorry."

And suddenly she was in tears.

"Let go." She pulled against his arm, feeling weak for starting to cry. He hadn't seemed to notice her tears, lost in memory lane.

"Mal I know he meant a lot to you. He meant a lot to me as well. I remember the weekend we spent at the coast-"

"Let go of me." She didn't want to reminisce about her dead dad to her ex. She just wanted to go home. He carried on as if she hadn't spoken.

"- and I knew he didn't particularly like me but _God _I wanted to impress him so much and we just got talking about fishing and next thing I know we're like best friends. He was such a great guy. He could be so funny sometimes. And he taught me everything I know about fly fishing. The coast was-"

She yanked hard, and almost went flying into the door. "_I said let go of me!"_

Her hand came out, slapped him hard, the product of a long stewing hatred and desire. He was stunned and both of them stood their breathing heavily as if they'd gone for a round on her bed. She used the hand she slapped him with to wipe her tears, and she disappeared back into the room and tried not to show how upset she was to her mother.

A/N: Schools been riding my ass like a bitch. Didn't even get the chance. Hope you enjoyed this!


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